1. NAME AND TITLE

WEERIE: Code System for Assessing the Radiological Consequences of Airborne Effluents from Nuclear Installations.

2. CONTRIBUTOR

Central Electricity Generating Board, Berkeley Nuclear Laboratories, Berkeley, England, through the OECD NEA Data Bank, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.

3. CODING LANGUAGE AND COMPUTER

Fortran IV; IBM 370/3033.

4. NATURE OF PROBLEM SOLVED

WEERIE is a mathematical model for guidance in the safety and siting aspects of nuclear installations under operational or accident conditions.

5. METHOD OF SOLUTION

The model begins with a full radioactive fission product inventory applicable to the fuel at the time of interest generated for any reactor type and irradiation history. The amount of fuel involved in the incident may vary as a function of time and either a time decaying or constant fission product inventory may be used to specify the release. The activity leaks from the circuit with allowances for time-dependent plateout, resuspension, and filtration of each elemental species. By preserving the full nuclide decay schemes, nuclides leaking into the atmosphere depend not only upon their own release behavior but also on that of their precursors.

The effluent in the atmosphere is dispersed from an effective stack height and allowance is made for building entrainment. Standard meteorological dispersion models are used and the effects of radioactive buildup and decay, ground and inversion reflections and ground deposition are considered. The inhalation doses to 10 human adult body organs (soluble doses for the bone, kidney, liver, thyroid, and total body, insoluble doses for the lung, stomach, small intestine, upper and lower intestines) and the cloud beta doses are then evaluated. The cloud gamma-ray exposure is estimated by integration over the volume of the plume.

6. RESTRICTIONS OR LIMITATIONS

The fission product chains are up to six isotopes long. In obtaining the fission product inventory, delayed neutron emission is ignored as a mode of decay so that the assumption is made that the fission products beta-decay down the decay chains with allowance for neutron captures.

7. TYPICAL RUNNING TIME

Sample Problem 1, which generated the Fission Product Library and the Plume Dosimetry Library on units 18 and 19, respectively, required about 25 seconds and 1,500 I/O.

Sample Problem 2, which used the above libraries, required about 7 seconds and 1,200 I/O.

8. COMPUTER HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

WEERIE is operable on the IBM 370/3033 computers.

On an IBM 3033, under MVS, 350 K was required for the compilation and the execution of the first sample problem. The second sample problem executed in less than 300 K.

9. COMPUTER SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

A Fortran H extended enhanced compiler is required.

10. REFERENCES

R. H. Clarke, "A Users Guide to the WEERIE Program," RD/B/N2407 (April 1973).

R. H. Clarke, "The WEERIE Program for Assessing the Radiological Consequences of Airborne Effluents from Nuclear Installations," Health Physics, Vol. 25, 276-280.

11. CONTENTS OF CODE PACKAGE

Included are the referenced documents and one (1.2MB) DOS diskette which contains the source code, sample JCL, and sample problem input and output.

12. DATE OF ABSTRACT

June 1982, July 1991.